The True Story vs. Myth of Witchcraft. William Godwin
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leve
Only the body and not the soule greve;
Witnesse on Job, whom we didde ful wo.
And som tyme have we might on bothe two,
That is to say of body and soule eeke
And som tyme be we suffred for to seeke
Upon a man and don his soule unrest
And not his body, and al is for the best.
Whan he withstandeth our temptacioun
It is a cause of his savacioun.
Al be it so it was naught our entente
He schuld be sauf, but that we wolde him hente.
And som tyme we ben servaunt unto man
As to the Erchebisschop Saynt Dunstan;
And to the Apostolis servaunt was I.
* * * * *
Som tyme we fegn, and som tyme we ryse
With dede bodies, in ful wonder wyse,
And speke renably, and as fayre and wel
As to the Phitonissa dede Samuel:
And yit wil som men say, it was not he.
I do no fors of your divinitie.77
Jewish theology, expanded by their leading divines, includes a formidable array of various demons; and the whole of nature in Christian belief was peopled with every kind
'Of those demons that are found
In fire, air, flood, or under ground.'
Various opinions have been held concerning the nature of devils and demons. Some have maintained, with Tertullian, that they are 'the souls of baser men.' It is a disputed question whether they are mortal or immortal; subject to, or free from, pain. 'Psellus, a Christian, and sometime tutor to Michael Pompinatius, Emperor of Greece, a great observer of the nature of devils, holds they are corporeal, and live and die: ... that they feel pain if they be hurt (which Cardan confirms, and Scaliger justly laughs him to scorn for); and if their bodies be cut, with admirable celerity they come together again. Austin approves as much; so doth Hierome, Origen, Tertullian, Lactantius, and many eminent fathers of the Church; that in their fall their bodies were changed into a more aerial and gross substance.' The Platonists and some rabbis, Porphyrius, Plutarch, Zosimus, &c., hold this opinion, which is scornfully denied by some others, who assert that they only deceive the eyes of men, effecting no real change. Cardan believes 'they feed on men's souls, and so (a worthy origin) belike that we have so many battles fought in all ages, countries, is to make them a feast and their sole delight: but if displeased they fret and chafe (for they feed belike on the souls of beasts, as we do on their bodies) and send many plagues amongst us.'
Their exact numbers and orders are differently estimated by different authorities. It is certain that they fill the air, the earth, the water, as well as the subterranean globe. The air, according to Paracelsus, is not so full of flies in summer as it is at all times of invisible devils. Some writers, professing to follow Socrates and Plato, determine nine sorts. Whatever or wherever the supralunary may be, our world is more interested in the sublunary tribes. These are variously divided and subdivided. One authority computes six distinct kinds—Fiery, Aerial, Terrestrial, Watery, Subterranean and Central: these last inhabiting the central regions of the interior of the earth. The Fiery are those that work 'by blazing stars, fire-drakes; they counterfeit suns and moons, stars oftentimes. The Aerial live, for the most part, in the air, cause many tempests, thunder and lightning, tear oaks, fire steeples, houses; strike men and beasts; make it rain stones, as in Livy's time, wool, frogs, &c.; counterfeit armies in the air, strange noises ... all which Guil. Postellus useth as an argument (as, indeed, it is) to persuade them that will not believe there be spirits or devils. They cause whirlwinds on a sudden and tempestuous storms, which, though our meteorologists generally refer to natural causes, yet I am of Bodine's mind, they are more often caused by those aerial devils in their several quarters; for they ride on the storms as when a desperate man makes away with himself, which, by hanging or drowning, they frequently do, as Kormannus observes, tripudium agentes, dancing and rejoicing at the death of a sinner. These can corrupt the air, and cause sickness, plagues, storms, shipwrecks, fires, inundations.... Nothing so familiar (if we may believe those relations of Saxo Grammaticus, Olaus Magnus, &c.) as for witches and sorcerers in Lapland, Lithuania, and all over Scandia to sell winds to mariners and cause tempests, which Marcus Paulus, the Venetian, relates likewise of the Tartars.78
'These are they which Cardan thinks desire so much carnal copulation with witches (Incubi and Succubi), transform bodies, and are so very cold if they be touched, and that serve magicians.... Water devils are those naiads or water nymphs which have been heretofore conversant about waters and rivers. The water (as Paracelsus thinks) is their chaos, wherein they live ... appearing most part (saith Trithemius) in women's shapes. Paracelsus hath several stories of them that have lived and been married to mortal men, and so continued for certain years with them, and after, upon some dislike, have forsaken them. Such an one was Egeria, with whom Numa was so familiar, Diana, Ceres, &c.... Terrestrial devils are Lares, Genii, Fauns, Satyrs, Wood-nymphs, Foliots, Fairies, Robin Goodfellows, Trulli; which, as they are most conversant with men, so they do them most harm. Some think it was they alone that kept the heathen people in awe of old.... Subterranean devils are as common as the rest, and do as much harm. Olaus Magnus makes six kinds of them, some bigger, some less, commonly seen about mines of metals, and are some of them noxious; some again do no harm (they are guardians of treasure in the earth, and cause earthquakes). The last (sort) are conversant about the centre of the earth, to torture the souls of damned men to the day of judgment; their egress and ingress some suppose to be about Ætna, Lipari, Hecla, Vesuvius, Terra del Fuego, because many shrieks and fearful cries are continually heard thereabouts, and familiar apparitions of dead men, ghosts, and goblins.'
As for the particular offices and operations of those various tribes, 'Plato, in Critias, and after him his followers, gave out that they were men's governors and keepers, our lords and masters, as we are of our cattle. They govern provinces and kingdoms by oracles, auguries, dreams, rewards and punishments, prophecies, inspirations, sacrifices and religious superstitions, varied in as many forms as there be diversity of spirits; they send wars, plagues, peace, sickness, health, dearth, plenty, as appears by those histories of Thucydides, Livius, Dionysius Halicarnassensis, with many others, that are full of their wonderful stratagems.' They formerly devoted themselves, each one, to the service of particular individuals as familiar demons, 'private spirits.' Numa, Socrates, and many others were indebted to their Genius. The power of the devil is not limited to the body. 'Many think he can work upon the body, but not upon the mind. But experience pronounceth otherwise, that he can work both upon body and mind. Tertullian is of this opinion.'
The causes and inducements of 'possession' are many. One writer affirms that 'the devil being a slender, incomprehensible spirit can easily insinuate and wind himself into human bodies, and cunningly couched in our bowels, vitiate our healths, terrify our souls with fearful dreams, and shake our minds with furies. They go in and out of our bodies as bees do in a hive, and so provoke and tempt us as they perceive our temperature inclined of itself and most apt to be deluded.... Agrippa and Lavater are persuaded that this humour (the melancholy) invites the devil into it, wheresoever it is in extremity, and, of all other, melancholy persons are most subject to diabolical temptations and illusions, and most apt to entertain them, and the devil best able to work upon them. 'But whether,' declares Burton, 'by obsession, or possession, or otherwise, I will not determine; 'tis a difficult question.'79
The mediævalists believed themselves surrounded everywhere by spiritual beings; but unlike the ancients, they were convinced not so much that they were the peculiar care of heaven as that they were the miserable victims of hellish malice, ever seeking their temporal as well as eternal destruction; a fact apparent in the whole mediæval literature and